Chuck Hawley is a life-long sailor, having grown up on the California Coast. He has sailed approximately 40,000 miles on vessels ranging from ultralight "sleds" to single-handed sailboats to the maxi-catamaran PlayStation. Voyages of interest include two singlehanded passages to Hawaii, three crewed transpacific races, and a World Record attempt on the west to east Transatlantic record on PlayStation. While enjoying fast passages, he understands the importance of having functional, easily-repaired electrical, water, engine, and fuel systems so that each voyage can be completed successfully without outside help.

Chuck is a nationally known speaker on marine safety, and is one of five moderators of the US Sailing Safety at Sea Seminars for the last ten years. He has done extensive research into crew overboard recovery, life raft design, anchor design, and storm tactics, and has moderated seminars prior to the Newport-Bermuda, Transpac, and West Marine Pacific Cup Races.

Chuck has served as Commodore of the Singlehanded Sailing Society in San Francisco (1980), the Santa Cruz Yacht Club (1992), and on the board of the Pacific Cup Yacht Club (2000). He also serves on the US Sailing Safety at Sea Committee and the American Boat and Yacht Council Technical Board.

Chuck has worked for West Marine for 20 years, and is responsible for the West Advisor articles that appear in West Marine's catalogs. He is also Vice President of Product Development. He lives in Santa Cruz, CA with his wife Susan and four daughters, and currently owns a Viper 640 21’ sailboat and a Zodiac 20’ RIB.

A member of the Department of Waterfront Activities staff since 1995, Steitz brings a lifetime of sailing experience with the top racing programs around the world, where he has developed an expertise in the fields of sailboat racing and crew management. He has competed three times for the America’s Cup, sailing as bowman with Team Dennis Conner. In 1995, he sailed aboard the defender, Young America in the America’s Cup Finals against Team New Zealand’s Black Magic.  In 2000, he competed aboard AmericaOne, skippered by Paul Cayard.

In addition to the America’s Cup, he has regularly competed in such events as the Newport Bermuda Race, Key West Race Week, Cowes Week, the St. Francis Big Boat Series, the Kenwood Cup, the Maxi World Cup, the Knickerbocker Cup, and the Admiral’s Cup. Steitz has served in leadership positions aboard some of the best and most successful boats in racing, including Infinity, Gaucho, Gem, Il Moro De Venezia, Champosa, and Insatiable. 

In 2007, Ralf was awarded the Timothea Larr Award, US SAILING's highest honor in Safety Training.

   Bill Biewenga is one of America's most accomplished offshore sailors. He has accumulated approximately 320,000 sea miles including 26 transatlantic crossings, several TransPacs, numerous record attempts, deliveries and races, as well as participation in four round the world races. He has worked as skipper, navigator, weather analyst/router, watch captain, helmsman, deck hand, and project manager collecting a vast amount of knowledge and experience.

  He is the author of Weather for Sailors, published in 2004 by North U.  Also ashore, he works as a routing consultant for boats in the Atlantic as well as the Pacific. Vessels include both multi-hulls and monohulls doing speed record attempts, races, deliveries and cruises.

     Bill sailed Thursday's Child single-handed from Plymouth, England to Newport, RI to qualify as alternate skipper for the 1986-'87 BOC Challenge. He raced on Drum in the 1985-'86 Whitbread Round the World Race and returned to act as project manager, alternate skipper, and router for Thursday's Child's BOC Challenge Single-handed Round the World Race campaign.

     Currently Bill is actively engaged in racing and delivering a variety of vessels, routing for some of the world's top offshore campaigns and writing articles on navigation, marine weather and how to efficiently use weather information, as well as other marine topics. In order to more effectively disperse that information, Bill, with the help of several friends, is now launching and continuing to improve his linked websites, WxAdvantage.com and NavSolutions.net.

   Ralph Naranjo is the Technical Editor of Practical Sailor, and is currently writing a Seamanship book for McGraw Hill.  For ten years Ralph served as the Vanderstar Chair at the U.S. Naval Academy, over seeing the sail training program and acting as the Academy’s lead agent on the development of the new David Pedrick designed Navy 44.  He moderates US Sailing Safety at Sea Seminars, and has written extensively in the yachting press about safety and technical marine topics.

   His cruising and racing experience ranges from a family voyage around the world aboard his sloop Wind Shadow, to club racing, Bermuda events and a serious commitment to wind surfing.   Ralph has managed a full service boatyard, consulted on boat building projects and strongly believes that “self-reliance” is an offshore sailor’s best ally.

   Charles Daneko is the Senior Technical Representative, Marine LifeRafts, WINSLOW LifeRaft Company.  Charles has been at this position for the past 8 years.

   Prior to joining WINSLOW, Charles was in the Navy for 30 years, 23 of that on active duty and is a retired Senior Chief Petty Officer.  While on active duty, Charles was an Aircrew Survival Equipment-man, responsible for the proper inspection and packing of parachutes, life preservers and life rafts as well as packed and man mounted survival equipment.  Part of his duties was aircrew training in the proper use of this equipment.

   Since joining WINSLOW LifeRaft Company, Charles has attended open water training with Starke Survival as well as conducting training for various government agencies and civilian boating and sailing groups.

  Mike is currtently the General Manager and Vice President of Brewer Cove Haven Marina, a position he has held for the past 20 years.  Mike's offshore and ocean sailing experience amounting to over 200,000 nautical miles is much too extensive to list here.  He has competed in 10 Newport-Bermuda Races, 3 Marblehead-Halifax Races, the Fastnet and Sydney to Hobart.  He has served as captain of 70-85-foot yachts for over 10 years, he's performed 2 circumnavigations and holds a 100 Ton USCG masters licence since 1976. 

   Following a 30 year career in the US Navy, Ron with his wife Kathy began cruising seriously.   When ashore Ron volunteers on sailing safety matters.  He currently serves on the Cruising Club of America’s Safety at Sea (SAS) Committee and is an Advisor to US SAILING’s SAS Committee. He edits the ISAF Offshore Special Regulations for racing and the booklet Safety Recommendations for Cruising Sailboats for US SAILING and is one of four approved moderators of Sanctioned SAS Seminars.   In 1994 and 1995 Ron held the Vanderstar Sailing Chair at his alma mater, the US Naval Academy.  He is past chairman of CCA’s and US SAILING’s SAS Committees.  Ron was Chairman of the 2000 Newport Bermuda Race.  He has sailed in five races to Bermuda.

   Ron and Kathy sailed their 39 foot cutter, MOONESHINE, for 22 years.  They sailed along the North Atlantic Circle to and from Ireland twice and from Grenada to Labrador including a circumnavigation of Newfoundland.  Ron and Kathy have over 90,000 sea miles sailing their own boats in the Atlantic and Pacific. 

Currently the Fleet Safety Manager of the Moran Towing Corporation operating throughout the United States, Eric holds numerous qualifications and authorizations, valid in both the UK and USA, to act as an instructor for a wide variety of disciplines including, but not restricted to vessel handling, navigation and passage planning, risk assessment and safety awareness, sea survival and vessel abandonment, first aid, CPR and the use of AEDs. He has extensive experience sailing as master, crew or safety manager on a variety of commercial, charter, training and pleasure vessels throughout Europe and the US.

  Capt. Knott's expertise has been tested, accepted and used by the Police in the UK and USA, criminal and civil courts, public enquiries and H.M. Coroner in many accidents and incidents of various types.